HISTORY
The Willits Community Theatre
A History
In 1977, a group of inspired friends came together with the conviction that Willits needed a live theatre of its own. Their first production was a play about Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends called Eeyore’s Birthday. As the months passed, the group continued to meet, organize, and imagine a future beyond a single show. They formed a board of directors, divided up the many necessary tasks, and officially named themselves The Willits Community Theatre.
In the early years, WCT produced two or three plays annually, performing primarily in the Fellowship Hall of the Methodist Church, but also at the Little Lake Grange, the Willits High School auditorium, and even Clementine’s Bar. Many of these productions drew enthusiastic audiences. For a brief period, the company went by the name The Willits Players, though its commitment to being a true community theatre never wavered.
By the mid-1980s, the board began searching for a permanent home. They explored several possibilities, including the old telephone office, the Noyo Theatre, and the former Mormon Church building, now the Little Lake Health Center. Each option presented significant challenges, whether structural, financial, or both.
In 1987, the theatre reorganized and hired Broadway veteran Linda Posner, who performed under the stage name Leland Palmer, as Artistic Director, and her husband Jim Marill as General Manager. As part of the agreement, the company returned to its original name: The Willits Community Theatre.
A major turning point came in 1991 with WCT’s production of The Music Man at the Willits High School Auditorium. The show grossed $14,000 and netted $9,000, an extraordinary success that allowed the theatre to establish a serious building fund. By October 1992, the board approved a five-year lease on Bruce Hutton’s former Volkswagen repair shop on Van Lane in downtown Willits. For the first time, WCT had the opportunity to create a permanent playhouse.
The transformation of the repair shop into a functioning theatre took seven months, more than 680 volunteer hours, numerous in-kind donations including theatre seating, a $13,000 loan, and a grant from the City of Willits to construct the building’s façade. Local house painter and artist Brooks Darrow served as Project Manager, with Cliff Tichenor as Master Carpenter.
WCT’s first production in the new space took place in May 1993 and was a fundraiser conceived, written, and directed by screenwriter and film director Lanny Cotler. Dueling Pianos, set in a two-piano Old West saloon, featured local favorites Ed Reinhart and Spencer Brewer in a spirited musical face-off. The honor of the first mainstage production in the playhouse, however, belongs to Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs, directed by Chris Rahlwes and produced in June 1993.
In September 1997, Bruce Hutton offered to sell the property to WCT. Instead, the theatre renewed its lease for another five years, with the right of first refusal should the property go up for sale. In 2001, negotiations began in earnest, and the purchase of the building was finalized in May 2002. For the first time in its history, the Willits Community Theatre owned its home.
After several financially successful seasons, the theatre experienced a sharp downturn. Income fell and insolvency loomed. It appeared that WCT’s long run might be nearing its final curtain. At this critical moment, veteran board members Jane Camp and Donna Vaiano, joined by former Managing Director Beth Rosen, stepped forward. They committed to holding the theatre together for two years and seeing what might come next.
What followed was renewal.
Kitty and Creek Norris launched a popular guest artist concert series, bringing musicians from around the world to the WCT stage. Between 2010 and 2019, the Norrises produced 87 concerts, generating an estimated average of $5,000 per year for the theatre.
Also beginning in 2010, local playwright Don Samson began producing his work at WCT. Over the next decade, the theatre staged more than a dozen of his sharp, ironic one-act plays, as well as two full-length works. One of these, The Last Pay Phone in Willits, a “pocket musical,” drew more than 500 audience members over ten performances and provided a much-needed financial and artistic boost. From 2010 to 2020, seventeen Don Samson plays were produced at WCT.
A new wave of artists soon followed, including Kelly Kesey, Rod Grainger, Steve Marston, and Jason Edington, while Mike A’Dair brought stability and consistency to the role of Production Manager and Kevin H. C. Moore began his technical restoration of the theatre lighting and sound.
In 2017, the theatre produced a children’s show titled The Trial of the Wicked Witch, which proved wildly popular. This success led to the creation of a youth summer theatre program in 2018. That program has since grown into Gateway to the Stage, a cornerstone of WCT’s educational outreach. In 2019, Clue: The Musical played to near-capacity crowds for all ten performances and became the most profitable single production since The Music Man. The theatre had officially recovered.
Then, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic brought live performance to a sudden halt.
That same year, longtime board member and devoted supporter Donna Vaiano passed away. In an extraordinary final gift, she left a substantial bequest to the Willits Community Theatre. Her generosity proved instrumental in sustaining the theatre through the financial uncertainty of the pandemic, ensuring that WCT would endure and return.
From 2020 to 2023, Steve Marston served as Managing Director during one of the most demanding periods in the theatre’s history. Working closely with Production Manager Mike A’Dair, the theatre returned to live performance safely and boldly. Between 2021 and 2023, WCT produced more plays than any surrounding theatre, maintaining high artistic standards while prioritizing the health of artists, volunteers, and audiences alike.
Throughout this period, Gateway to the Stage continued every single year, with student performances held at Willits High School and Willits Charter School. With assistance from Mary Guibert, the program also began expanding into affordable after-school performing arts education for Willits-area students.
In 2023, Jeff Shipp assumed the role of Production Manager, followed in 2024 by Amythyst Romero as Managing Director. Together, with an energized and growing board of directors, they welcomed Michealle Havenhill as House Manager and began shaping a broader vision for the theatre.
Today, the Willits Community Theatre is expanding what live performance can look like in Willits. In addition to plays and musicals, WCT now presents the Mosaic Series and multiple guest artist programs, welcoming magic, dance, music, burlesque, and other performance forms to its stage. These offerings reflect the theatre’s founding spirit: responsive to the community, open to experimentation, and grounded in the belief that live performance belongs to everyone.
Nearly five decades after a small group of friends staged Eeyore’s Birthday, the Willits Community Theatre remains a home for artists, audiences, and students, and a vital part of the cultural life of Willits.
The story of the Willits Community Theatre is still being written